China’s E Fund Expands Collaboration with Bloomberg

E Fund Management Co. Ltd., one of the largest fund management companies in China, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding to expand its collaboration with Bloomberg. The expansion will cover areas including financial information, technology and climate change, and is designed to assist E Fund in accelerating its global development.

Xiaoyan Liu, co-chairman of the board and CEO of E Fund, says: “E Fund has been consistently advancing its global development strategy, aiming to provide global clients with better products and services. We are pleased to be working with Bloomberg to create long-term, sustainable value for our investors.”

Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg, adds: “China’s increasing integration with global capital markets has significance for investors everywhere. We’re glad to support China’s leading financial institutions as they expand.”

CDP Urges G20 to Back Nature Disclosures

Nature-related impact disclosures should be made mandatory for financial institutions and companies, CDP has urged on the eve of a meeting of the world’s 20 richest countries and trading blocs. The disclosure organisation warned the G20 that without such data, greenwashing could remain a challenge and that biodiversity would suffer.

KX Adds kdb Insights and kdb Insights Enterprise to Google Cloud Marketplace

KX, a providers of vector and time-series data management, has announced the native availability of kdb Insights and kdb Insights Enterprise on Google Cloud Marketplace. This is a significant milestone in KX’s partnership with Google Cloud and will allow customers to accelerate AI, machine learning, IoT automation, and generative AI-powered applications on Google Cloud.

Ashok Reddy, CEO at KX, says: “Combining our real time analytics and our vector database with the elasticity and scalability of Google Cloud infrastructure will help enterprises rapidly accelerate their journey towards more real time and effective business decision making.”

SDX Adopts Digital Token Identifier

SIX Digital Exchange (SDX) had become the first private distributed ledger technology (DLT) based financial market infrastructure to adopt the Digital Token Identifier Foundation’s ISO 24165 Digital Token Identifier (DTI) standard. The DTI standard provides a unique identifier for digital ledgers, tokens, and cryptocurrencies, and has been recommended by ESMA as a risk management measure for the EU’s DLT Pilot programme.

ESG Book Chosen to Support Data Project in Asia

ESG Book will provide data to an Asian-based project to address gaps in the sustainability data record. ESG Book, a open data initiative led by vendor Arabesque and backed by a dozen major banks, will be among providers of information to the Sustainable Finance Institute Asia’s (SFIA) Single Access Point for ESG Data (SAFE) initiative. ASIA is a collaboration between multiple stakeholders in the Asia Pacific region.

MSCI and Google to Harness Generative AI in ESG Data Offering

MSCI and Google Cloud are to jointly create generative AI solutions in an expansion of a collaborative effort to build a data marketplace for ESG investors. MSCI intends to offer the technology driven by Google Cloud’s Vertex AI, along with its climate tools BigQuery Geospatial and Earth Engine.

Executives Planning to Substantially Increase ESG Data Spend

ESG data demand is on the rise among portfolio managers, with the vast majority planning to substantially increase spending on the resource, according to a Bloomberg survey.

The financial data giant’s ESG Data Acquisition and Management Survey of more than 100 managers and executives found that 92 per cent would boost spending on ESG data by more than 10 per cent and almost a fifth would increase it by 50 per cent.

The survey found, however, that around half of respondents said that contending with new ESG content and managing multiple data feeds was a challenge.

Moody’s Analytics Wins Contract to Fight Financial Crime in European Union

Moody’s Analytics has won a framework contract worth up to €34 million from the European Commission to strengthen its anti-fraud, money laundering and financial crime effort. The four-year contract will be managed by the Commission’s European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and will use the Orbis database operated by Bueau van Dijk, a Moody’s Analytics subsidiary, to access company data, information on connected individuals, and risk indicators.

Organisations working with the Orbis data will include the European Court of Auditors, European Banking Authority, European Public Prosecutor’s Office, Europol and up to 30 Directorate Generals of the EC. They will apply the data to form a comprehensive understanding of the increasing threat of fraud and financial crime in the EU.

Auditing Body Releases ESG Data Assurance Proposal

The global auditing standards setter, the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB), has released its proposals for ISSA 5000, which will cover the validation of ESG data. As the IAASB explained to ESG Insight last week, the standard – if adopted – is hoped to harmonise the way ESG data is verified by auditors.

With Intelligence Plans Growth Acceleration Following Investment by Motive Partners

With Intelligence, a provider of investment data and intelligence for allocating, fund-raising and business development in the public and private markets, has received a majority investment from funds advised by Motive Partners, a private equity firm focused on financial technology. Intermediate Capital Group, which originally invested in With Intelligence in 2020, will invest further alongside Motive.

The company plans to use the investment to accelerate growth as it focuses on delivering leading connectivity, data and insights solutions to the limited partner and general partner communities. Founded in 1998, With Intelligence is a provider of data, intelligence and connectivity to the global asset management industry, with an integrated product suite of data, insights and events covering hedge funds, private credit, private equity, real estate and traditional asset management.